Sunday, January 22, 2012

The problem for all those people in that commercial mis-singing "Rocket Man" isn't so much that Elton John is some kind of mushmouth, it's that he and Bernie Taupin can't get on the same page as far as which syllables to emphasize. In the line "Burnin' up his fuse out there alone," EJ's music stresses the syllable "there," which isn't the worst possible syllable to emphasize but is clearly in the bottom half. And then the music crams the entire two-syllable word "alone" into not much more than a single note.

One song that makes the words almost impossible to understand - although nobody cares, because it's such a fantastic song - is the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." In the chorus, the first half of each line is punched out like Regis is singing it, only to force poor Michael to get four or five words onto a single note in the second half: "Won't! You! Please! Let! Me! Backinyourheart." Michael kinda survives that one, but if you say you understood "Now! That! I! See! Youinhisarms" the first time you heard the song, you're lying.

You know, those people in the TV commercial wouldn't need whatever product that ad is pushing if they'd just listen to the Shatner version. Among the man's many virtues, he sure can enunciate:

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

If you watch the classic cartoon network Boomerang, you've probably seen the bumper featuring a Popeye cartoon in which our sailor-hero is trying to put his four nephews to bed, except that as soon as Popeye leaves the room, they leap up and keep playing a raucous Dixieland-style tune. The slamming of the bedroom door and the snoring of the nephews is integrated into the rhythm of the song, which is executed with whip-crack timing; it's a truly delirious piece of work.

I had been fortunate enough to see this entire episode on Boomerang once, which features the nephews - Poopeye, Pipeye, Pupeye and Peepeye - playing music on whatever is handy, including a radiator, a hot water bottle, a pair of suspenders, etc. Recently I found a collection of Popeye classics on Netflix, which my son Mark (who would rather watch a Popeye cartoon from 1938 than a lot of the cruddy cartoons they're making today) and I began watching together. When I noticed there was an installment titled "Me Musical Nephews," I got excited, figuring this had to be the one. And it was, except... it was in black and white.

I knew the first time I had seen this, it was in color. The Boomerang 30-second bumper, obviously, was in color. Yet it was also obviously the same cartoon. Did someone colorize it? Was the Netflix version taped off a black-and-white broadcast from Channel 32 in 1966?

It turns out that "Me Musical Nephews," which was released in 1942, was remade, shot for shot, in 1950 as "Riot in Rhythm." (As an aside, 1942 seems awfully late to be releasing black-and-white cartoons, but that's what IMDB says.) I've watched both of them, and I'm sure they didn't just color in the cels from the first version; there are small, subtle differences. For instance, in "Nephews," Popeye stomps a radio, then crushes the tubes that were inside it; in "Rhythm," there are no tubes inside that radio.

But the scenarios, dialogue, everything is pretty much the same. You'd have to watch them back-to-back to notice any difference. Which brings up the question: Did the animators really re-create an entire seven-minute cartoon from scratch? Did they at least reuse the soundtrack, which is nothing short of incredible? I feel sorry for them, at this late date, if they had to re-record all that music.

And of course, the big question is, how often did this happen? Were other B&W cartoons remade in color? I am hardly enough of a cartoon expert to answer that. But I do know that if you're going to make new versions of black-and-white cartoons, "Me Musical Nephews" is a good place to start.

I know you don't want to watch a B&W cartoon, so here's "Riot in Rhythm." You'll never know the difference.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Grant Bisbee at the Baseball Nation site has been writing recently about what he calls "The Archaic YouTube Policy of Major League Baseball," pointing out that it's counterproductive for MLB to take down old games presented on YouTube when all they're really doing is promoting interest in baseball. For whatever reason, I have latched onto old NFL games on YouTube rather than MLB ones, as I've brought up on this very site ad nauseum, but I can say that the NFL's policy is exactly the same. Old games stay up on YouTube for weeks, months if you're lucky, before the NFL's rapacious lawyers see fit to enforce their copyright claims.

I totally understand the legal reasoning behind this, but I still think it's dumb. For one thing, if the lack of response to my posts here on the subject are any evidence, I am the only person around who has any interest at all in these games.

More importantly, though, the NFL has shown that they have absolutely no plans to exploit the moldering tapes of these ancient contests. I can say this because a couple of weeks ago, at Christmas, the NFL Network presented a special on the famous 1970 Christmas Day playoff game between the Dolphins and Chiefs, the game that ended up being the longest in NFL history. As part of this presentation, the network planned to show, directly from the original broadcast, the game's overtime period.

Well, if you'll pardon my saying so, whoop de do. I would have a very strong desire to see this broadcast in its entirety, including the commercials, which lend so much of the proper period flavor to these things. But a little piece of it? Eh, maybe. It's hard for me to get excited if you're not going to even bother to show the first 60 minutes of game time from one of the most famous games in NFL history. These people must not be football fans.

So, O lordly NFL, if you don't even have the nerve to show that classic in its entirety, what chance do I have of legally watching the Falcons-Giants game from week two of the 1983 season, as I happen to be doing now? There is zero chance of the NFL displaying this game in any context whatsoever, much less making a buck off of it. So how about you just let me and my fellow YouTubers enjoy it in peace?

Let me add that there is some historical value to this game. It's the second game of Bill Parcells' Hall of Fame coaching career (although I don't know yet whether it's his first win, and don't you dare tell me). John Madden is the color man, before he got elevated to CBS' top broadcasting team; here he's paired with Jack Buck. And he's just amazingly good. Madden is able to describe, in clear and colorful terms, why each play succeeds or fails, with great accessibility and enthusiasm. John Madden is the best TV analyst in NFL history, and here he is in his formative years. Catch him while you can.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

There's a legend that has grown up around the notion that the person who broadcast the news of the murder of John Lennon to the American public was Howard Cosell, who was announcing a Patriots-Dolphins game on that fateful Monday evening in December 1980. Last year, ESPN devoted an entire special to the role played by Monday Night Football on that terrible night.

But by the time Cosell got around to telling the nation what had happened, many people already had a pretty solid inkling. I can say this because I just watched a videotape of that MNF telecast, taped off the air from the ABC affiliate in Baltimore. With three minutes left in the game, there was a special news bulletin reported via crawl, noting that "Former Beattle [sic] John Lennon" had been shot. The crawl appeared just as the Dolphins were connecting on a deflected touchdown pass that tied up the game at 13-13.

It wasn't until the Patriots were lined up for a potential game-winning field goal, with just three seconds left in the game, that Cosell made his fateful announcement. That was about 12 minutes in real time after the crawl had appeared in Baltimore. Clearly, many football fans in Charm City - and presumably elsewhere around the country - knew Lennon had been shot or even killed before Cosell said anything about it.

The Dolphins blocked that kick, by the way, sending the game into overtime, to the obvious dismay of Cosell and Frank Gifford, who clearly could not fathom how they were going to shift gears back into the excitement of professional football. Fran Tarkenton, the third man in the booth, just seemed oblivious.

Part of this may be due to the lag between the initial reports, that Lennon had been shot, and word of his death. On the other hand, there couldn't have been too much time in between, since he was reported DOA at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. One wonders if the shooting of a Beatle would have been enough to disrupt Monday Night Football, as opposed to the death of one. I really don't know.